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Masabi Launches U.S.’s First Ticketless Rail System

Train ticketing is a technology that hasn’t changed much since the dawn of the train era. Every day, millions of people queue to buy a piece of cardboard that gives them permission to get on a train.

Sometimes the demand for cardboard is so great that you can’t get a piece. Then you run the risk of being fined for not having pulped wood, even though you were willing to pay, and it was the company’s inability to sell you one.

So good news from a London-based company that, in a rare case of selling ice to eskimos, has sold its ticketless technology to a U.S. rail company, the first smartphone rail ticketing system in the U.S.

Masabi will launch the U.S.’s first smartphone rail ticketing system with the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA) — the fifth-largest transit agency serving approximately 1.3 million passenger trips each weekday.